Showcasing early entrepreneurs has a twofold purpose. One is to offer an added marketing communications or social media element to help promote their businesses. The second is to provide a forum through which they can guide other aspiring business owners around avoidable obstacles and toward a path of attainable goals. Sharing insights begins with hearing their stories firsthand beginning with a conversation with
Julianna Greer, founder and host
Nouveau
info@nouveau-dupage.com
www.nouveau-dupage.com
phone: 630-984-5365
cell: 630-306-6767
blog: http://nouveau-dupage.com/blog.htm
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Nouveau offers interactive life-enrichment programs that are mostly classes and workshops along with some fun events. Our popular topics include memory improvement, stress management, dream interpretation, how to sell on eBay™ which is a direct result of the economy because people are trying to get rid of their unnecessary items, live more simply and make money at the same time. Another presentation that goes over well is entitled “Welcome to the New Normal.” While I have a degree in gerontology and present several of the programs myself, Nouveau encompasses a reserve of professionals that delivers the wide-ranging topics listed on our program of events.
WHY I STARTED THE BUSINESS
Nouveau began out of a desire to develop a business that we could build and run from anywhere. My husband and I talked about the type of business that we’d want to be involved in after retirement. Meanwhile, I could see the days of my current career were numbered, so when I did lose my job, Nouveau began sooner than later.
OUR UNIQUENESS
What makes Nouveau unlike anything else is that we focus on humanities, psychology and personal growth. Community colleges tend to focus on computer training, foreign languages and, in some cases, culinary arts all in an academic environment. What we do is host our events in a more social setting with the right ambiance where refreshments are available. We specifically avoid holding our classes in classrooms or boardrooms for this purpose. Looking toward next year, I envision event planning services that would include content-based marketing and fund-raising events for retail businesses and non-profits.
OUR IDEAL CLIENT
We’ve found that people most interested in life-long learning tend to be adults over 35 with at least some college education. I’m reaching these people through a number of groups on LinkedIn™ and my Facebook™ page. I’m also making use of press releases to announce our various events. At the same time, I’m offering some free programs to develop name recognition. I conduct a regularly-scheduled email blast to my mailing list along with targeted direct mail campaigns. Plus, I will be starting my own MeetUp™ group. We’ve found that the most effective way to broadcast our programs is by the venue itself posting them on its own event calendar. I’m looking to partner with various restaurants or businesses who would find our life-enriching programs complementary to what they offer their customers.
SHARED ADVICE
What surprised me the most about starting my business was the amount of time and the many channels I’d have to go through to get it up and running. What I might have done differently would be to contact more social networking groups in advance to learn that they were not necessarily going to support my concept or promote my business as some so-called experts had assured me would be the case. What I am doing is connecting with some advisory groups to gain help in refining my direction. From my own experience, I would tell new entrepreneurs that starting your business most likely will take more time and money than you originally expected, but with perseverance and the help of the right advisers there is no reason you can’t succeed.
Editor's question: What other venues do you feel would be ideal for life-enrichment programs?
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Reducing transition stress becomes basis for entrepreneur's new business
Showcasing early entrepreneurs has a twofold purpose. One is to offer an added marketing communications or social media element to help promote their businesses. The second is to provide a forum through which they can guide other aspiring business owners around avoidable obstacles and toward a path of attainable goals. Sharing insights begins with hearing their stories firsthand beginning with a conversation with
Michael Harrawood, owner
Just Call Mike Home Helpers
michaelharrawood@comcast.net
708-289-4763
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Just Call Mike provides services either for seniors who are downsizing and moving into another home (i.e. condo, assisted living, etc.), or busy professionals who are in the midst of relocating. We help get their homes ready for resale. We'll go in and clean the carpets, patch and paint, clean the windows, pack up belongings and do whatever it takes to make the house move-in ready. This also includes cleaning the basement and/or the garage. Beyond this, we also offer seasonal services such as putting up and taking down exterior holiday lighting and décor as well as general home maintenance and organizing. If all someone needs is a single room painted, some heavy items moved, or their gutters cleaned and are looking for a trustworthy and reliable source, Just Call Mike.
WHY I STARTED
I'd been in the building industry for more than 20 years and saw business steadily decline over recent years to the point where I needed to make a career-changing decision. During my time in building I had seen people taken advantage of because they too often relied on people who weren't trustworthy. I want to be their safe, ethical, reliable resource who understands how stressful moving can be for anyone - seniors in particular who are moving from what they always knew as home into a completely new place. Our tagline is "taking the stress out of transition."
MY UNIQUENESS
Unlike similar companies that offer move-out services, I provide more detailed services that others usually don't cover such as window and carpet cleaning, touch-up painting, and minor repairs. But, what sets us apart the most is that we personally focus on the well-being of all those involved. Again, it's taking the stress and anxiety out of these life-changing events.
CLIENT PROFILE
Our perfect clients are seniors themselves or family members who are responsible for relocating and selling their seniors’ homes. We also work with professionals who are also relocating and need similar help preparing their homes for resale. We strive to get each the best value for their homes by de-cluttering, repairing and refreshing each and every room. This could also include landscape clean-up and on-going maintenance until the vacant property is sold. Secondary client/partners for us would be realtors, stagers, estate lawyers, financial professionals/institutions, senior living community professionals and corporate relocation specialists.
SHARED ADVICE
Because I have a tendency to over-analyze everything, I found that starting my business was easier than I had first thought. If you have the experience, are good at what you do and have a real passion for something, just go ahead and do it. Get involved in a lot of networking and align yourself with mentors who are as passionate about helping you as you are about your business. Pay no attention to your critics and stay close to those who champion your ideals and goals.
Editor's question: How many entrepreneurs connected with one or more mentors at the beginning of starting your businesses and in what ways did that help?
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Social networking referral turns into website solution for graphic designer
Showcasing experienced entrepreneurs offers an added marketing communications or social media element to help promote their businesses. In addition, it provides a forum through which they can share solutions to unique business challenges that might be the answer to a similar challenge with which yet another entrepreneur is struggling. This openness of information flows with the following story offered by
Jennifer Strezo
Principal Brand Designer
Red Seal Design
Jennifer@redsealdesign.com
http://linkedin.com/in/jenniferstrezo
www.redsealdesign.com
773-456-2732
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Red Seal Design is a full-service graphic design company specializing in creating signature brands for small businesses. A signature brand is a company’s image or identity that appears on all of its sales and marketing materials. It includes the look of your logo, your brochures, your letterhead, business cards, website, PowerPoint™ presentations, direct mail, newsletters and the like. A signature brand gives companies a more professional look over something that they’ve tried to create themselves or have taken off the Internet. A signature brand will help to set a company apart from its competition and be immediately recognized and long remembered.
MY UNIQUENESS
We develop customer solutions for your communications materials based on the personality of your company. Red Seal Design doesn’t create a great-looking design without first learning what the image is that the company wants to portray. I begin with a series of basic questions regarding the client’s goals and target audience, but then move into more aesthetic questions pertaining to the client’s likes and dislikes, what adjectives would best describe the compeny, its core values and culture. In this way, my team can create a custom signature brand that truly reflects what the company is all about.
IDEAL CLIENT PROFILE
A perfect client for us would be your small business that has been operating for at least three years and in the beginning may have created their own brand identity or used some form of online template, but now is ready to move up to the next level of brand identity. With so many businesses struggling, today, many come to realize that they need to stand out from their competitors. That’s when they come to us for that professionally-designed custom signature brand.
UNIQUE CHALLENGE
Like most small businesses when they’re just starting out, I had limited funding. While I was able to design my own signature brand for all of my marketing materials, I still needed to hire someone to develop my website which I knew would cost thousands of dollars. The challenge was figuring out how to secure a great custom website design at minimal cost. At first, I attempted to create one on my own, but it was taking up too much of my time and was not getting me to where I needed to be. Meanwhile, I was losing potential business with no website to which I could direct prospective clients. So, after several months of frustration, I decided to seek the help of a professional web developer.
RESOLUTION
I turned to all of my contacts including those on LinkedIn™ and asked for some referrals. It so happened that a friend from college gave me the name of someone who was able to create economical custom websites by using free WordPress™ and Joomla!™ templates. Among the features that make these templates so attractive is that they allow the website owner to make his or her own website edits avoiding additional costs of having to call back the web developer to make them. This sounded perfect. As a result, I was able to design all of my web pages in Photoshop™ and my web developer found a suitable free template into which he could import all of my custom designs. So, after spending months trying to accomplish this on my own, my new found web developer was able to produce a new customized website for me in a couple of days for a fraction of the cost of HTML development. Meanwhile, he and I have created a partnership that now offers our clients economical custom website designs that focus on signature brands.
Editor's question: Who has struggled with developing their own brand identity? Who believes a fresh new signature brand will help better your position among your competitors - and how?
Jennifer Strezo
Principal Brand Designer
Red Seal Design
Jennifer@redsealdesign.com
http://linkedin.com/in/jenniferstrezo
www.redsealdesign.com
773-456-2732
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Red Seal Design is a full-service graphic design company specializing in creating signature brands for small businesses. A signature brand is a company’s image or identity that appears on all of its sales and marketing materials. It includes the look of your logo, your brochures, your letterhead, business cards, website, PowerPoint™ presentations, direct mail, newsletters and the like. A signature brand gives companies a more professional look over something that they’ve tried to create themselves or have taken off the Internet. A signature brand will help to set a company apart from its competition and be immediately recognized and long remembered.
MY UNIQUENESS
We develop customer solutions for your communications materials based on the personality of your company. Red Seal Design doesn’t create a great-looking design without first learning what the image is that the company wants to portray. I begin with a series of basic questions regarding the client’s goals and target audience, but then move into more aesthetic questions pertaining to the client’s likes and dislikes, what adjectives would best describe the compeny, its core values and culture. In this way, my team can create a custom signature brand that truly reflects what the company is all about.
IDEAL CLIENT PROFILE
A perfect client for us would be your small business that has been operating for at least three years and in the beginning may have created their own brand identity or used some form of online template, but now is ready to move up to the next level of brand identity. With so many businesses struggling, today, many come to realize that they need to stand out from their competitors. That’s when they come to us for that professionally-designed custom signature brand.
UNIQUE CHALLENGE
Like most small businesses when they’re just starting out, I had limited funding. While I was able to design my own signature brand for all of my marketing materials, I still needed to hire someone to develop my website which I knew would cost thousands of dollars. The challenge was figuring out how to secure a great custom website design at minimal cost. At first, I attempted to create one on my own, but it was taking up too much of my time and was not getting me to where I needed to be. Meanwhile, I was losing potential business with no website to which I could direct prospective clients. So, after several months of frustration, I decided to seek the help of a professional web developer.
RESOLUTION
I turned to all of my contacts including those on LinkedIn™ and asked for some referrals. It so happened that a friend from college gave me the name of someone who was able to create economical custom websites by using free WordPress™ and Joomla!™ templates. Among the features that make these templates so attractive is that they allow the website owner to make his or her own website edits avoiding additional costs of having to call back the web developer to make them. This sounded perfect. As a result, I was able to design all of my web pages in Photoshop™ and my web developer found a suitable free template into which he could import all of my custom designs. So, after spending months trying to accomplish this on my own, my new found web developer was able to produce a new customized website for me in a couple of days for a fraction of the cost of HTML development. Meanwhile, he and I have created a partnership that now offers our clients economical custom website designs that focus on signature brands.
Editor's question: Who has struggled with developing their own brand identity? Who believes a fresh new signature brand will help better your position among your competitors - and how?
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Fine-tuning language skills of international professionals becomes niche business for entrepreneur
Showcasing experienced entrepreneurs offers an added marketing communications or social media element to help promote their businesses. In addition, it provides a forum through which they can share solutions to unique business challenges that might be the answer to a similar challenge with which yet another entrepreneur is struggling. This openness of information flows with the following story offered by
Sandra Wroblewski, MA CCC-SP/L
Communications Specialist
Accent Aware
accentaware@aol.com
www.accentaware.com
630-784-8173
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Accent Aware offers communication training for international professionals whose second language is English. I offer this training to individuals as well as to companies and organizations. It’s not teaching English as a second language, but more in line with the next step which is fine-tuning a person’s American-English language skills. The initial response to my early marketing efforts came not only from corporate professionals, but also from the Catholic Church and the medical field. As a result, I’ve worked a lot with Catholic priests who have carried over their accents from their countries of origin and with medical professionals who understood the critical need for clear verbal communication.
MY UNIQUENESS
When I first started my business, there was little competition. But, now there are others who have recently taken up this type of training. What sets me apart is that I have been a speech pathologist for a long time with years of experience. I continue to pursue educational resources to increase my variety of training methods as opposed to a single type of training fairly common within this field. Also, I have narrowed my area of concentration to where I have now been working primarily on accent modification for the past five or six years. That’s what makes Accent Aware unique.
IDEAL CLIENT PROFILE
On the individual level, my ideal client would be a professional who speaks English well and has a good use and knowledge of the language, but runs into problems in his or her career setting of being understood. Potential clients need to be dedicated, hard-working and wanting to make a change in how they come across in professional conversation and presentations. With regard to groups, the ideal client profile here would be companies that would include me as part of their employee development teams, or to those who offer continuing educational training to their employees.
UNIQUE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The travel time it takes to get from appointment to appointment to meet with individuals is not the most lucrative way for me to conduct business. What would be ideal would be to have individual companies with a good number of clients within each one to work with in succession, or to work with groups of unrelated individuals all at one location. My challenge is to make this happen.
RESOLUTION
I am concentrating on reaching people within corporations through those who are in charge of employee training and development. That includes those who manage a company’s diversity training, as well. Because of their being closer to the need for this type of communication training, I am confident of receiving a positive response. What’s more, I have joined business associations to meet and reach people within large corporations and organizations. And, at the same time, I am increasing my social media presence and pursuing online training opportunities as technology improves and online interaction between client and trainer happens more in ‘real time.’
Editor's question: Is accent modification something you knew existed? And do you personally know a professional to whom you might recommend such training?
Sandra Wroblewski, MA CCC-SP/L
Communications Specialist
Accent Aware
accentaware@aol.com
www.accentaware.com
630-784-8173
ABOUT MY BUSINESS
Accent Aware offers communication training for international professionals whose second language is English. I offer this training to individuals as well as to companies and organizations. It’s not teaching English as a second language, but more in line with the next step which is fine-tuning a person’s American-English language skills. The initial response to my early marketing efforts came not only from corporate professionals, but also from the Catholic Church and the medical field. As a result, I’ve worked a lot with Catholic priests who have carried over their accents from their countries of origin and with medical professionals who understood the critical need for clear verbal communication.
MY UNIQUENESS
When I first started my business, there was little competition. But, now there are others who have recently taken up this type of training. What sets me apart is that I have been a speech pathologist for a long time with years of experience. I continue to pursue educational resources to increase my variety of training methods as opposed to a single type of training fairly common within this field. Also, I have narrowed my area of concentration to where I have now been working primarily on accent modification for the past five or six years. That’s what makes Accent Aware unique.
IDEAL CLIENT PROFILE
On the individual level, my ideal client would be a professional who speaks English well and has a good use and knowledge of the language, but runs into problems in his or her career setting of being understood. Potential clients need to be dedicated, hard-working and wanting to make a change in how they come across in professional conversation and presentations. With regard to groups, the ideal client profile here would be companies that would include me as part of their employee development teams, or to those who offer continuing educational training to their employees.
UNIQUE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The travel time it takes to get from appointment to appointment to meet with individuals is not the most lucrative way for me to conduct business. What would be ideal would be to have individual companies with a good number of clients within each one to work with in succession, or to work with groups of unrelated individuals all at one location. My challenge is to make this happen.
RESOLUTION
I am concentrating on reaching people within corporations through those who are in charge of employee training and development. That includes those who manage a company’s diversity training, as well. Because of their being closer to the need for this type of communication training, I am confident of receiving a positive response. What’s more, I have joined business associations to meet and reach people within large corporations and organizations. And, at the same time, I am increasing my social media presence and pursuing online training opportunities as technology improves and online interaction between client and trainer happens more in ‘real time.’
Editor's question: Is accent modification something you knew existed? And do you personally know a professional to whom you might recommend such training?
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